• Barack Obama,  Hispanic Vote,  Polling,  President 2012

    President 2012 Poll Watch: Obama Approval Sinks Among White and Hispanic Voters

    According to the latest Gallup Poll.

    President Barack Obama earned the lowest monthly job approval rating of his presidency to date in August, with 41% of U.S. adults approving of his overall job performance, down from 44% in July. He also received term-low monthly job approval ratings from both Hispanics (48%) and whites (33%) and tied his lowest rating from blacks (84%).

    The latest results are based on Gallup Daily tracking throughout August and include telephone interviews with more than 12,000 whites, 1,100 blacks, and nearly 1,200 Hispanics.

    Whites’ approval of Obama has trended downward thus far in 2011 after showing little change in 2010. Whites’ largest drop in support for the president within a calendar year — 17 percentage points — came in 2009, declining from 58% in February, the first full month of Obama’s presidency, to 41% by December.

    Blacks have remained solidly approving of Obama throughout his presidency; however, 2011 is the first year this group’s monthly job approval has routinely registered below 90%, indicating a decline in blacks’ support, albeit a fairly minor one.

    The president’s current standing with Hispanics reflects a rather steep decline since January, when 60% approved of him. This follows Hispanics’ less-pronounced drops in their support in each of the first two years of his presidency. As a result, the gap between blacks and whites in Obama’s job approval has been widening while the gap between Hispanics’ and whites’ approval has been narrowing.

    Although Hispanics’ monthly approval of Obama dipped below 50% for the first time in August, more still approve than disapprove (48% vs. 37%) of his job performance. A relatively high 15% — typical for Hispanics — has no opinion.

    Hispanics’ Approval of Obama Now Close to National Average

    While blacks and Hispanics both expressed significantly higher-than-average approval for Obama throughout 2009 and most of 2010, Hispanics’ approval has been moving progressively closer to the national average and is now only single digits above it. Whites’ approval has consistently remained about eight points below the national average. As a result, blacks have become an extreme outlier — the only major racial group showing well-above-average approval.

    Here is the chart reflecting the gap:

    So, what does this all mean?

    President Obama has lost the white voter and now has only a 33% job approval number. This is a significantly LOW number.

    Hispanic voters are likewise leaving the Obama ship of state although more approve than disapprove of the President’s performance. However, the trend towards disapproval is unmistakable.

    And, without overwhelming African American support, the President would not even be in the game.

    President Obama has significant problems going into the 2012 re-election campaign season.

    Despite launching his presidency with a large majority of Hispanics approving of his job performance, along with most blacks, Obama has seen significant erosion in Hispanics’ support.. As a result, while Hispanics’ approval of Obama was at one time 20 points higher than the national average, at this time it is just 7 points higher. Two significant slips in Hispanics’ approval of Obama were seen in 2010, perhaps linked with the president hedging on campaign promises to make immigration reform a priority. However, that decline has continued into 2011 as the nation’s focus has turned more to the economy and federal budget problems.

  • Barack Obama,  Hispanic Vote,  Mitt Romney,  Polling,  President 2012,  Rick Perry

    President 2012 Poll Watch: Obama 49% Vs. Perry 43% or Romney 45% Vs. Obama 45%

    According to the latest PPP Poll.

    Rick Perry is looking increasingly like the Republican favorite for President- he led in the Iowa poll we released this morning and he leads by double digits in the national poll we’ll release tomorrow. The biggest beneficiary of Perry’s rise? It might be Barack Obama.

    In our first national poll pitting the two Obama leads Perry 49-43. That six point advantage is pretty comparable to Obama’s margin of victory over John McCain. Perry has certainly come on strong with Republicans but independents view him negatively already by an almost 2:1 margin, 29/55, and Democrats pretty universally give him bad ratings at a 10/71 spread. As a result Obama leads Perry thanks in large part to a 24 point advantage with independents at 56-32.

    It’s a different story for Obama when it comes to the match up against Romney. There he can only achieve a tie at 45%, and because there are a lot more undecided Republicans than Democrats in all likelihood Romney would come out ahead if voters had to go to the polls and really make a decision today. Romney does better than Perry because he holds Obama to only a 9 point advantage with independents, 48-39, and because he loses only 5% of the Republican vote to Obama where Perry loses 10%.

    My Oh My.

    On the day where Rick Perry is seen to be pulling away from Mitt Romney, this new general election poll gives Romney some TV ad fodder as being the most electable alternative to President Obama.

    This race is so on…..

    One big reason Obama’s doing pretty well in these match ups is the Hispanic vote. Exit polls in 2008 showed him winning it by a 36 point margin over McCain but he builds on that in all of these match ups with a 37 point advantage over Romney at 66-29, a 46 point one over Perry at 72-26, a 48 point edge over Bachmann at 74-26, a 49 point lead on Palin at 74-25, and a 53 point spread on Herman Cain at 75-22. This is a good example of what Republican strategist Mike Murphy has described as the economics vs. demographics tension for next year’s election. The economy could sink Obama but at the same time an ever growing expanding Hispanic vote that he wins by a huge margin could be enough to let him eek out a second term. It’s certainly propping him up on this poll.

    I wonder how this demographic breaks out, if either former Florida Governor Jeb Bush or Senator Marco Rubio, who speaks at the Reagan Library tonight, are added as a Vice Presidential pick?

  • Barack Obama,  Hispanic Vote,  Illegal Immigration,  President 2012

    President 2012: Obama Shores Up His Support Among Hispanic Voters By Deporting Illegal Immigrants By “Priority”

    Immigrant rights groups and community members call in Los Angeles Monday, Aug. 15, 2011, for an end to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Secure Communities program, which was created in 2008 and calls for police to submit suspects’ fingerprints to DHS so they can be cross-checked with federal deportation orders

    In a blatant display of pandering to Hispanic voters, President Obama has used his executive authority to thwart the will of Congress and federal law.

    Bowing to pressure from immigrant rights activists, the Obama administration said Thursday that it will halt deportation proceedings on a case-by-case basis against illegal immigrants who meet certain criteria, such as attending school, having family in the military or having primary responsible for other family members care.

    The move marks a major step for President Obama, who for months has said he does not have broad categorical authority to halt deportations and said he must follow the laws as Congress has written them.

    But in letters to Congress on Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she does have discretion to focus on priorities and that her department and the Justice Department will review all ongoing cases to see who meets the new criteria.

    This case-by-case approach will enhance public safety, she said. Immigration judges will be able to more swiftly adjudicate high-priority cases, such as those involving convicted felons.

    The move won immediate praise from Hispanic activists and Democrats who had strenuously argued with the administration that it did have authority to take these actions, and said as long as Congress is deadlocked on the issue, it was up to Mr. Obama to act.

    Sounds like a revised “Dream Act” to me. Remember this was the law that was denied passage last December.

    The Obama administration announced Thursday that undocumented students and other low-priority immigration offenders would not be targeted for deportation under enforcement programs.

    The announcement marks further steps to stop the deportation of people it considers “low-priority” immigrants like so-called Dream Act-eligible students and those with long-standing family ties in the country. These eligible students are those who were illegally brought to the U.S. as children by their parents.

    The move means that those who are in deportation proceedings will have their cases reviewed and, if they are set aside as low-priority, could possibly be given work permits. Low-priority individuals will also be less likely to end up in deportation proceedings in the first place, officials said.

    In a way this is a backdoor illegal alien amnesty by executive “triage.”

    The top House Republican on the Judiciary Committee said the move is part of a White House plan to grant backdoor amnesty to illegal immigrants.

    The Obama administration should enforce immigration laws, not look for ways to ignore them, said Rep. Lamar Smith, Texas Republican. The Obama administration should not pick and choose which laws to enforce. Administration officials should remember the oath of office they took to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the land.

    There will probably be some lawsuits over this matter, but in the end the courts will decide this is within the discretion of the Homeland Security Department which is under the executive control of the President.

    But, now, the political heat and fall out will be a different story.

  • Census,  Hispanic Vote

    Census Watch: Hispanic Population Now 16.3 Per Cent of the United States

    According to the latest 2010 census.

    Hispanics are now the largest minority group in the United States. According to the 2010 Census, 50.5 million Hispanics now reside in the U.S. This means that Hispanics account for 16.3% of the total population in the U.S. By comparison, 63.7% of the population is white, 12.2% is black, and 4.7% is Asian. Nearly 2% of the population checked more than one race on their census form. The nation’s Latino population, which was 35.3 million in 2000, grew 43% over the decade. The Hispanic population also accounted for most of the nation’s growth (56%) from 2000 to 2010. Among children ages 17 and younger, there were 17.1 million Latinos in 2010, or 23.1% of this age group

    But, geographically most Hsipanics continue to live in just nine states.

    Geographically, most Hispanics still live in nine states that have large, long-standing Latino communities — Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York and Texas — but the share living in other states has been growing.

    In 2010, 76% of Latinos lived in these nine states, compared with 81% in 2000 and 86% in 1990. (In 2000, 50% of Hispanics lived in California and Texas alone. In 2010, that share was 46.5 %.) Despite the pattern of dispersion, however, there are more Latinos living in Los Angeles County (4.7 million) than in any state except California and Texas.

    This will affect public policy and voting patterns both statewide and nationally as POLS attempt to persuade Hispanics to support their party/candidacy.


    The complete report is here.

  • Census,  Election 2010,  Hispanic Vote,  President 2012

    Hispanic Vote 2010: No Discernible Trend?

    Apparently so in an analysis of recent census bureau data.

    Before the 2010 election some commentators argued that the failure to address immigration would increase Hispanic turnout, while others argued it would cause them to stay home. New Census Bureau voting data show that neither of these predictions was correct. Hispanic turnout conformed to the pattern of recent mid-term elections.

    Here are the findings:

    • Prior to the 2010 election, the Center for Immigration Studies projected that Hispanics would comprise 6.8 percent of the national electorate in congressional elections. The new data from the Census Bureau almost exactly match this projection, with Hispanics comprising 6.9 percent of the vote.
    • Our projection was correct because it was based on the assumption that Hispanic turnout would follow past patterns for mid-term elections and that Hispanics would neither be especially animated nor especially disengaged in 2010.
    • The 31.2 percent of Hispanic citizens who voted in 2010 matches the 31.2 percent who voted in the 2002 mid-term election, and is very similar to the 32.3 percent who voted in 2006. All of these values fall within the margin of error of ± 1.7 percentage points and indicate that 2010 was not unusual.
    • In addition to the 6.9 percent of voters who identified as Hispanic in the 2010 election, 77.5 percent of voters identified as non-Hispanic white, 11.5 percent as non-Hispanic black, and 2.4 percent identified as non-Hispanic Asian.
    • The size of the Hispanic vote varied significantly by state. In 2010, Hispanics were less than 5 percent of the vote in 39 states plus the District of Columbia, and more than 10 percent of the vote in only five states (New Mexico, California, Arizona, Texas, and Florida).
    • Polling of Hispanics indicates that immigration is not one of the top issues for Hispanics. Similar to other voters, education, jobs, health care, and the federal deficit all rank above immigration in importance.1
    • This does not mean immigration is unimportant to Hispanics. What is does mean is that it was not an issue that was important enough in 2010 to have a discernible impact on their overall turnout.
    • Only 27 percent of Hispanic voters in the 2010 election were immigrants themselves (naturalized U.S. citizens) and just 14.9 percent lived in the same households as a non-citizen. The lack of direct personal experience with immigration may explain why the issue does not rank higher in importance to Hispanic voters.
    • CNN’s national exit polls showed that, in 2010, 60 percent of Hispanics voted for Democrats and 38 percent voted for Republicans. This compares to 69 percent and 30 percent in the last mid-term election in 2006. If the failure to address immigration played a role in Hispanic voting, it seems to have helped Republicans.2
    • However, the increase in the Republican share of the Hispanic vote in 2010 is almost certainly related to general voter dissatisfaction with the economy, and parallels gains that Republicans made among many demographic groups.

    Here is a graph on Hispanic share of adults, citizens and voters from 2000 to 2010.

    Note the lower rate of share of voters

    In the next table, you will see the number and percentage of the vote by race and ethnicity in 2010.

    Figure 2 and table 1 show that the Hispanic vote is steadily increasing but continues to be a relatively modest share nationally of the total vote.

    Using the 2010 election as an example, the white electorate was 11 times larger in 2010 than the Hispanic electorate. This means that 1 percent of the white electorate equals 11 percent of the Hispanic electorate. Or put a different way, if a national candidate increased his or her share of the Hispanic vote by 11 percentage points, but in the process lost one percentage point of the white vote, there would no net gain in votes. Although the overall Hispanic population is now significantly larger than the overall black population, the black electorate is still much larger. In 2010, the black electorate was 64 percent larger than the Hispanic electorate.

    Let’s look at Hispanics by state.

    The size of the Hispanic vote varied significantly by state and Hispanics are concentrated in five states – California, Florida, Texas, New York and Arizona. As a share of voters, Hispanics were more than 30 per cent of the vote in New Mexico and between 10 and 20 per cent in California, Arizona,Texas and Florida.

    There were six states (Nevada, New York, Colorado, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Illinois) in which Hispanics were between 5 and 10 percent of the electorate in 2010. Of these, Nevada and Colorado are often considered battleground states. In most of the other traditional battleground states such as Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and New Hampshire, Hispanics are a small fraction of voters.

    So, what this all mean?

    Don’t look for Hispanic pandering to be a part of the national GOP election in 2012.

    The path to winning the White House through the electoral college will not be through any states where Hispanics vote will make a difference, except perhaps in Florida, where a Cuban American Hispanics have an electoral presence in the GOP primary.

  • California,  Census,  Hispanic Vote

    Census Watch: California Latino Population Booming

    I had posted on this previously here but here are more of the numbers.

    California’s Latino population grew nearly three times as much as the state as a whole in the last decade, making the state home to more than a quarter of the nation’s Latinos, according to a new Census Bureau report.

    While California’s population grew by 10 percent, the 2010 census found, the Latino growth was 27.6 percent, accounting for more than 90 percent of the state’s overall population gain. Latinos accounted for more than half of the nation’s growth during the decade and now are 16.3 percent of the U.S. population.

    Latinos, the census said, now are 37.6 percent of all Californians, up more than five percentage points since 2000. That percentage is exactly the same as that of Texas, with both states trailing only New Mexico, at 46.3 percent.

    Many states have seen higher Latino growth rates than California, some nearly 150 percent, such as Alabama and South Carolina.

    Latinos now trail non-Latino whites in California by about four percentage points. They are expected to become the state’s largest ethnic group by mid-decade.

    This will mean more Hispanic officeholders as the California Redistricting Commission draws new Legislative and Congressional boundaries based on the census. It will also mean the California GOP may shrink further into irrelevancy like New York, Massachusetts and Maryland since the Republican brand has been tarnished by the national party’s postion on illegal immigration.

  • Census,  Hispanic Vote

    Census Watch: 2010 Latino Electorate = More Voters and More Non-Voters



    The Pew Hispanic Center has a new report out about Hispanics and the 2010 midterm elections.

    More than 6.6 million Latinos voted in last year’s election — a record for a midterm — according to an analysis of new Census Bureau data by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center.

    Latinos also were a larger share of the electorate in 2010 than in any previous midterm election, representing 6.9% of all voters, up from 5.8% in 2006.

    Rapid population growth has helped fuel Latinos’ increasing electoral participation. According to the Census Bureau, 50.5 million Hispanics were counted by the 2010 Census, up from 35.3 million in 2000. Over the same decade, the number of Latino eligible voters — adults who are U.S. citizens — also increased, from 13.2 million in 2000 to 21.3 million in 2010.

    However, even though more Latinos than ever are participating in the nation’s elections, their representation among the electorate remains below their representation in the general population. In 2010, 16.3% of the nation’s population was Latino, but only 10.1% of eligible voters were Latino and fewer than 7% of voters were Latino.

    This gap is driven by two demographic factors — youth and non-citizenship. More than one-third of Latinos (34.9%) are younger than the voting age of 18, a share greater than that of any other group. And an additional 22.4% are of voting age, but are not U.S. citizens.

    Read it all.

    I think both Democrats and Republicans are cognizant of these demographic changes. The issue of the Hispanic vote will be polarizing short term and the GOP may very well cut their losses and abandon states, like California that have large Democratic Hispanic voters. But, this will gradually change as the Hispanic population ages, and assimilates.

    Moreover, I think over the long term the result of the demographic shift will be MORE Hispanic Republican candidates, competing against either Anglo or African-American Democrats.

  • Barack Obama,  Hispanic Vote,  Polling,  President 2012

    President 2012 Poll Watch: Obama Approval Slipping Among Blacks and Hispanics?

    Apparently so according to the latest Gallup Poll.

    Though majorities of blacks (85%) and Hispanics (54%) continue to approve of the job Barack Obama is doing as president, his ratings among these groups slipped in March and have set or tied new lows. His approval rating among whites, at 39%, remains above where it was in the latter part of 2010.

    Let’s look at the President’s approval among all groups.

    But, what is the most important is how President Obama is doing in the key battleground states. The rest of the polling is pretty much noise.

    The racial divide in opinions of Obama has been consistent throughout his presidency. The gap grew as large as 56 points last August (91% approval among blacks vs. 35% among whites). The current gap of 46 points is slightly lower, but still considerably larger than the average 34-point gap in the first five months of his presidency.

    Blacks and Hispanics are key constituencies for the Obama re-election campaign. However, the President has not been consistently supportive of immigration reform which is an important issue for Hispanic voters. If anything, they may not flock to the polls to support the President.

    But, does this matter?

    Probably not, since the key battleground states do not have large Hispanic populations – except maybe Florida and Nevada.

  • Census,  Hispanic Vote,  President 2012

    President 2012: Does the GOP Have a Hispanic Voter Problem?

    Yes and President Obama will exploit it in 2012.

    Hispanic population. Latinos made up half of all U.S. population growth in the past decade, by far the fastest growing group. Hispanics have nearly doubled to make up 16% of the country. We’ve said it here before, and now with the new Census numbers out it’s worth repeating: Latinos are already a serious political force in America and their influence will only get bigger. And that could be problematic for Republicans on a presidential level, because overwhelmingly right now, they prefer Democrats. Obama won Latinos 67%-31% in 2008, and they made up just 9% of the electorate. In the 2010 exit polls, when Republicans swept Democrats out of the U.S. House, Hispanics still preferred Democrats by a similar 64%-34% margin. And they made up just 8% of the electorate. In fact, look at the states out West with large Hispanic populations and how Democrats performed out West vs. the Midwest. In states with high Hispanic populations, Democrats were able to keep their losses to a minimum, holding on to Senate seats in Colorado and Nevada, keeping California fairly blue and holding on to House seats in Arizona they should have lost. As one Republican operative said to us in April 2010: “We have problems, clearly, with Hispanics,” the operative said. “If we do not manage an immigration bill appropriately, and we alienate Hispanics, Obama’s going to run up his numbers in the 70s [with Hispanics]. That is not a sustainable model to win.”

    The national GOP will soon have to decide on a strategy to reach out to the growing Hispanic population of voters. It will have to be a multi-faceted voter outreach program, while at the same time isolating the growth of illegal immigration, which in turn results (in a decade or so) more Hispanic voters.

    As you can see, this will take some finesse.

    Or, the GOP can write off most of the Hispanic vote and try to isolate the effects of their numbers to a few states.

    There is danger to the Democrats as well, since too much pandering to African-American and Hispanic voters will label them as the NON-white party.

    But, for now, President Obama has the advantage going into 2012 and you won’t be seeing too much GOP Presidential campaigning in California.

  • California,  California Republican Party,  Hispanic Vote

    Poll Watch: California Republicans Can Gain Ground with Hispanic Voters If They Become Democrats

    You think I am kidding?

    A statewide survey of California Latino voters released today showed that while this important voting demographic has a somewhat negative view of Republicans, there nevertheless exists an opportunity for Republicans to make inroads into the Latino community. The poll, conducted by veteran GOP pollster Bob Moore with strategic counsel from well-regarded GOP strategist Marty Wilson, surveyed 400 California Latino voters from March 12-14 and has a margin of error of +/- 5 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.

    Here are the specific findings:

    • Latino voters are generally negative about the Republican Party (26 percent favorable/47 percent unfavorable/27 percent no opinion) and widely positive about the Democrat Party (62/22/17).
    • The GOP is not going to win many Latino voters by stressing conservatism; only 22 percent suggest that Republicans should, “stick to core values and nominate true Conservatives.”
    • Philosophically, a third are self-described “Conservatives,” a third are Moderate and a quarter are Liberal.
    • The Arizona immigration law is widely unpopular; only 25 percent approve, while 71 percent disapprove of the law.
    • On the positive side for Republicans, more than seven-in-10 voters will consider a candidate who says, “secure the border first, stop illegal immigration, then find a way to address the status of people already here illegally” (73 percent favorable reaction).
    • Further good news for Republicans is that more than six-in-10 Latino voters are likely to consider voting for a GOP candidate who would “ensure all children had a chance at a first rate education” (69 percent would), who they agreed with on improving the economy and creating jobs (65 percent) and with whom they agree on protecting America from terrorists (63 percent).

    Here is the latest California census map which shows the growth of the California Hispanic population.

    The fact is despite my friend Marty Wilson’s happy moment in this poll. California Republicans as are most of America’s GOP are right of center and are not going to change their political philosophy in order to win elections – even in California. California liberalism with pandering to Hispanics, Asians and African-Americans has created a bankrupt state with major structural problems, like education, high taxes and an unfavorable business climate.

    California Republicans will have to pick their battles and win those seats where voters do not vote their racial or national origin, but vote for candidates on the issues.

    Unfortunately, for the California GOP, California has become a very blue Democratic state like New York and Massachusetts. California will remain so for the foreseeable future, regardless of whatever Hispanic outreach/pandering is pursued by the GOP .

    The entire poll is here (PDF).